The Portland daily press., 1887-02-22
AMONG THE INSANE.
The indoor Town on the Kennebec.
Scenes and Facts about the Biggest
House In the State.
How Patients Live and Do at the
State Insane hospital
Is lnsanIty Increasing IN MnIne2

ShAbO huSdHC nOSpitdt'
Is insanity increasing In Maine?
Inc trustees Of the State insane Hospital,
In their annual report, tell us that it Is, "aDd
that, too, beyond the ratio of Increase of pop
ulation." But DIR. Bigelow T. Sanborn, Su-
perintendent Of the Hospital, who has been
connected with the institution for twenty
one years, and is better able than any other
man in Maine to judge, will tell you that in
his opinion this misfortune is no more fire.
quent among the people OF Maine than it has
ever been. But the Hospital is becoming
more crowded every year; in the last five
years the number Of patients has increased
one hundred in the next five years the in
crease Is expected to be as many more. The
officers Of the institution will tell you that in
another decade and a half they expect to see
In Maine another hospital for the insane as
large as the one at Augusta, and as full
| of patients
| 1t is difficult to realize fully the meaning of
such prophecy as this Those who have
never visited the hospital picture 1t in their
imaginations as a great boarding house OF
hotel; 1t would be more correct, so far as
numbers Of patients and extent Of buildings
is concerned to think of it as a village, or
even as small city. There are
EVEN HUNDRED PEOPLE
within the limits ard under the government
Of the hospital at Augusta; more inhabi-
tants than there are within the four boun-
dairy lines of many Maine town; very re-
spectacle fraction Of the inhabitants Of the
city of Augusta. Their rooms and the
grounds about the Hospital are lighted bya
system OF gas works distinct from the gas
system Of the city of Augusta; until very re-
ecently, when contract was made with the
Augusta Water company for a supply for
thirty years at S1400 year, the hospital used
lts own system Of water works. To keep
the fires needed In the institution a year ft
requires twenty-five hundred tons. Of coal.
VI the FOOD this community consumes figures
Will give but an inadequate idea. 1t takes
eight tons Of beans to furnish forth their Ia
pies tor the Saturday night and Sunday
morning meals for year; on these beans
and for other purposes too, probably, they
use two hundred and fifty barrels Of vinegar
Inc old ladies OF the hospital as every
where else, like their tea, and Treasurer
Chase has to step up every year and pay
for
TON OF TEA
and two tons and half Of coffee. OF sugar,
twenty-five tons or more are used; OF the fat
beeves and bleating lambs that every year
make their last journey to the hospital pan
try, 1t would take small prairie for pas
tuTe; for Goldfish there Is a market good
enough TO give the Canadians another pang
Of jealousy. 1t would make a ran on
salary
CRAZY IN WEEK
to pay the grocery bills Of this large family;
and although the State stands ready TO help
out when needed the mere purchasing and
N of IA In, fbn
way gives one many hours Of planning and
perplexity.
When the care of the insane has become
task OF such magnitude; and when the num-
Der of persons now maintained within the
limits OF the Hospital is greater than ever
Defore-amounting y seven hundred people,
OF whom at the beginning of the present
year five hundred and twenty-eight were
patients-and Is increasing in greater ratio
than our increase Of population, II may seem
paradoxical to conclude that insanity itself
Is not becoming more frequent affiiction.
The explanation of this Is found in the in
stltutl0n itself. Twenty-0ne years ago,
when DIR. Sanborn first became an assistant,
II was small and pQor, IN accommodations
to have one Of its members in the hospital In
those days. To-day the institution is consid-
cred better place than home itself for an
insane person; and every year fewer are
kept at home and in town and city aims
So 1t happens that the
APPARENT INCREASE OF THE INSANE
in Maine is very great. If you wish to un-
derstand the reason for this change of senti-
ment that has gradually come about you
should go to the Hospital and meet the ply
sicians who are in charge Of it: DIR. San
born, superintendent, Drs. Hill and Dayeis,
first and second assistant superintendents,
and DR.. Mary @. Lowell, young lady who
came to the institution last summer as house
surgeon, with the education and training Of
the Boston College Of Physicians and Sur
geons and experience gained in the New
York Hospital for Women and Children.
Before her, no
WOMAN PHYSICIAN
was ever connected with public institution
Of Maine. These physicians, with Mr.. John
w. Chase, the steward and treasurer, and
Miss Alice G. Twitchell, the matron, form
the corps Of resident officers. To the Hos
pital and the well-being OF its people they
devote their best efforts. Its present eff
cient and well ordered condition Is the best
testimony to their professional success.
Then the State, with perhaps few grum-
blings from the Legislature, has been liber-
al toward the institution. So 1t has grown
more popular year by year, until this year
there Is an Imperative call ior more room.
More rooml Do you realize what more
room means? Already the hospital Is
the
BIGGEST BUILDING IN THE STATE.
1t lies like an immense letter II, with the
central offices at the junction Of the two
main lines Of the letter, and long corridors
extending thence off TO distant wards and
| apartments. On each Of the three main sto-
ries Of the hospital these corridors extend,
| one above the other. They are the streets OF
| the indoor town. One OF these corridors,
| which is probably the longest in New Eng
| land stretches away from the central offices
| for three hundred feet. The total length OF
| all the corridors. II they were put in a
| straight line, one after another, would be
three-quarters OF mile, And underneath
| the building down by its foundations are
| lines Of railway running exactly as do the
corridors above. Corridors and railways to-
| gether are more than mile In length.
This railway belongs to the commissary
| department of the hospital. The food from
| the cook room is sent to the basement on an
| elevator, and there loaded on to the cars,
| which are pushed away through
LONG TUNNELS
running to the remotest wards. These sup
ply trains run three times day, and their
freights are lifted by elevators to the wards
above.
Other things in the building are done on
as large a scale. For heat it requires six boil
ers, with men shovelling coal into
the furnaces all the time to fur
nish steam enough to keep the build
| ing at the mild summer temperature,
that pervades all parts Of 1t. Air fresh
| from out of doors is taken in by huge tubes
warmed In great boxes in the basement and
| then carried to the upper part of the build
| ing where 1t pervades every corridor and
ward, and then to give place to new atmos-
| phere Is drawn out on the lower floor by
/ system of ventilators. A new supply Is con-
| tinually coming in as the old goes out. There
| are ne registers with their blasts Of over
| heated air, no radiators or stoves, but q con-
tinual change Of air, change less appreca-
| BILE than the
GENTLRsr CURRENTS OF SUMMER,
but almost equally agreeable. This takes
place continually through the whole Of the
immense building.
In other things as well as in heating appa-
tus the institution is managed on the princi-
pie that there is nothing too good for the pa
tients. Every year large sums of money are
spent for plumbing Probably seventy
five thousand dollars would not settle all the
plumbers bills that have been put in on ac-
count of the hospital. This year new bath
tubs have been Sc. up, Of which the superin-
tendent Is very proud. They are OF solid
porcelain, and cannot be made in this cOun-
try If you should want one such as these
/ Il a -